


Hiding Out Can Give You Much More Than Quiet

by GreenAppleSause



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: AUTHOR AU, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Endometriosis, Everyone will be in this, F/F, Gen, Hospitalization, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SO MUCH TEA, Surgery, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tea, Tea shop AU, YouTube
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-01 00:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18324722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenAppleSause/pseuds/GreenAppleSause
Summary: "I only sat with you to get away from the other two, but your writing... it inspired me and helped me out.""Really? I only started writing again because of you."Writer's block was the bane of Jonathan Sims's existence, especially when his editor is breathing down his neck. But if there was anyone who would eventryfix it, it's his housemates. Well, maybe not Basira, but Georgie and Gerry liked to make his life difficult.Starting a small business would be hard for anyone, and it's not different for Martin Blackwood, owner of The Hideout Tea Bar. At least his staff tended to help him as best they can.Georgina Barker, podcaster, occasional Youtuber, tea lover, and person in constant pain, knows that her boys are dumb, and if there's two things she's good at, it's helping Jon fix his life, and drinking as much tea as Martin can brew.





	Hiding Out Can Give You Much More Than Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone else come up with a writing idea, and then next thing you know you're publishing it because you wrote the first chapter in a day, got an editor the next day, and fix it the day after? 
> 
> That's this.
> 
> Note that withing a few paragraphs I accidentally wrote in a subplot that I love a lot and will be important at points later on.
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy, and while this probably won't update often, I am excited to write this as often as I can.

Georgie sighed as she paused her recording for the third time in the hour. Melanie was going to ask why there was a light thumping sound in the background of her parts.

‘Jon, hitting your keyboard with your face will not finish your book for you,’ she called out as she opened her door to the hall, looking at the door of her more unfortunate housemate.

Cracking the door open a little, she saw Jon, laying face down on the floor using his wireless keyboard as a pillow, a button mash followed by a growing string of ‘t’s appearing on his screen.

‘Come on Jon, this isn’t helping you at all. The floor doesn’t have the answers you need, and neither do the crumbs between your keys.’

A quiet muttering sound, accompanied by some new letters and spaces indicated that Jon was trying to respond.

‘Sweetie, I can’t understand you with a spacebar in your mouth.’

Jon pushed himself up in a manner that could almost be called a push up - if you had never seen a push up before and you were being _very_ generous. ‘I said, I don’t eat near my keyboard.’

‘Uh huh,’ Georgie pulled him up off the floor, ‘it must be Basira eating all my good cereal in your room then. Seriously Jon, Basira doesn’t eat cereal, or go in your room for that matter, I know you keep eating it.’

‘Is that why you put a plastic spider in the box last week?’ he asked, glaring down at her.

She shrugged, pulling him out of his room, downstairs, towards their kitchen. ‘Of course. I got it from Gerry. I think it was his… cousin or second cousin who gave it to him? I know at least one of them has a degree in arachnology, or psychology. I forget.’

Their eyes met as Georgie handed him a glass. ‘Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m not stalking anyone. Gerry just told me while he was on break at The Hideout - you really need to go there sometime, you’d love it.’

He shook his head, taking a sip of water calmly. ‘Not if you dragged me kicking and screaming. I like my coffee machine and my tea bags, Georgie.’

‘Tea bags _I_ buy _from Hideout_ , by the way. Come on, the change of scenery might be what you need to get out of this funk. You can’t always rely on Tim to delete Elias’s emails before he sends them to keep him off your back.’

Jon stood, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. Once Georgie decided he needed to get out, there was no escape. ‘If I need a change of scenery, I’ll go to a friend’s,’ he tried.

Throwing his coat at him, Georgie sighed. ‘No offence Jon, but you have a grand total of three friends, and we all live in this house. Four, if you count The Admiral, who still lives in this house. The librarian doesn't consider you a friend, she considers you a nuisance, she told you that.

‘Now, we’re going to The Hideout, you’ll share a pot of tea with me, and you won’t complain while Gerry and I embarrass you in front of his coworkers.’ She was most of the way out the door before she finished.

Jon hurried after her, grabbing his bag full of notebooks, pens, and other such things, hurrying out after her, despite knowing she’d wait for him at the end of the currently empty driveway.

* * *

He had to admit, The Hideout had a great atmosphere. It was dimly lit, had just more than enough tables for everyone that actually came in to sit, takeaway cups, and the tea was, admittedly, very good.

Gerry’s reaction to Jon actually coming in had resulted in an indignant squawk and him dragging the girl he was working with away from the person she was talking to so she could meet him.

‘Sasha, this is my dumbass housemate, Jonathan, who has apparently made it here, so the world is probably ending,’ he stated, Georgie already snickering to herself.

‘Hey Sash’, can we get a pot of the usual to share?’ she asked, ignoring Gerry as best she could.

Sasha nodded. ‘Sure thing, Georgie. I’ll see if Martin has already made up the blend, otherwise it might take a little longer. Go grab a seat.’

Jon sighed, slouching in the chair Georgie directed him towards, Gerry sitting down the two of them. ‘We’re just missing Basira and we’d have the whole house here.’

‘And The Admiral,’ Georgie added.

‘True. Martin would probably love to have him in here, but I have no idea what teas, if any, are cat friendly… Maybe I should ask.’

Gerry took a moment to muse this while Jon looked for an escape. There was only one other customer, the man who Sasha had been talking to before Gerry dragged her away. He seemed content, drinking his tea and scribbling something down in his notebook, something Jon was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be doing himself, if Georgie and Gerry had anything to say about it,.

Gerry and Georgie, distracted by a conversation with Sasha, left Jon to slink over to the other table.

‘Sorry to intrude. I just need to write,’ he said when the man looked at him taking the chair across from him. The man nodded, smiled, and went back to his tea and writing.

Ten minutes of aggressive crossing out and pen tapping, the man filled up his tea and Jon’s, nodding again. Jon nodded back in tanks and took a sip.

‘Wait… that’s tea?’ he asked quietly. It tasted like hot chocolate.

‘Oh, yeah, it’s one of my favourites. It’s called “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Hot Chocolate” and was designed to taste like hot chocolate. It was also designed to improve mood and reduce stress and anxiety,’ the man told him before smiling and going back to his writing.

On a whim, Jon took a look at what the man was writing.

_Imagine, Dream, Fantasize_  
_The Sensation_  
_To Devour_  
_Flesh_

Poetry wasn’t something Jon had ever really dabbled in himself, both Georgie and Gerry had a while ago, while they were all in university, but Jon had always gone straight for prose.

Without realising what he was doing, he scrawled the lines down, which opened the floodgates. Ideas came to him in a way they hadn’t for some time. He didn’t notice when the man got up, or the teapot was removed. He only realised time had truly passed when Georgie tugged on his ear.

‘Georgie, I had something,’ he complained as she closed his notebook for him.

She rolled her eyes, pulling her coat on. ‘You’ve _had something_ for a few hours now. Gerry’s shift is over now, we’re headed home, and probably going to grab takeout. Basira told us not to wait up, she’s on graveyard tonight.’

Sure enough, he did have a message from Basira, telling him “`Don’t wait up for me tonight. Make sure you eat Jon, or I will wake you when I get home`”

He gathered his things and followed Gerry and Georgie out as they said their affectionate goodbyes, he just waved over his shoulder in an appreciative way.

The three went for Vietnamese since Georgie really wanted it and the other two figured she deserved it after a whole day out. While Gerry and Georgie were ordering, Jon quickly stopped into the nearest supermarket and bought a pack of bath bombs.

* * *

‘To Georgie,’ Jon started, lifting his glass partway through their meal.

‘To Georgie,’ Gerry echoed, smiling at her as she covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing. ‘For making it through a full day out, without actually having to leave the house. We are constantly proud of you for dealing with your pain as well as you do.’

‘There’s a pack of bath bombs up stairs, up in the big bathroom. Take however long you need,’ Jon added.

‘You guys are the worst,’ she muttered. ‘How dare you make me emotional? I hate you both, I’m going to take a long bath to sulk. Assholes.’ She smiled the whole way as she left the table and went up stairs, hugging them both as she left.

After finishing their own food in silence, the two men parted ways, Jon ready to lock himself in his room to write long into the night. In the stairwell he could hear Georgie loudly talking to, he assumed, Melanie over skype. He allowed himself a smile at that.

He picked up his keyboard that had still been on the floor and deleted the random letters from his document that had come from his use of the keyboard as a pillow. Breathing in the tea he had made, absently noting that Gerry had brought back some of the tea he had been drinking earlier that day.

Ready to write, he put the mug down, and started translating his notes into an actual story.


End file.
